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Air Dominance Consolidation Program
The Air Dominance Consolidation Program was a program initiated by the US Air Force in late 2018 with the goal of strengthening the USAF's fighter aircraft fleet in the wake of the introduction of the Chengdu J-20 and the Sukhoi Su-57 into Chinese and Russian service, respectively. Most notably, it hoped to achieve this by making the highly controversial move to restart F-22A Raptor production in spite of very high costs associated with doing so. This would also coincide with the introduction of the Block 52 Raptor, the most significant upgrade to the aircraft since its entry into service. Other aspects of the program included increased funding for the development of the AIM-120D AMRAAM, as well as for more exotic missile systems such as an ultra long-range AIM-194 AAAM "AWACS killer". Background Program components F-22 production restart & systems upgrade The most noteworthy decision made by the ADC Program was by far the choice to restart the production of the F-22A. As the world's first true fifth generation fighter aircraft, the F-22 was extraordinarily capable but also extraordinarily expensive, and in 2009 the F-22's production had was prematurely terminated despite the aircraft's incredible performance, due to budget cuts as well a lack of clear opposition from foreign powers. This would leave the USAF with a fleet of just 187 total operational Raptors, the last of which would be delivered in 2012. But the rest of the world's aerospace technology would of course keep marching onward in the interim. The Russians continued to develop extremely maneuverable and relatively cost-effective generation 4++ fighters with the Flanker series, which, while generally still outclassed by the Raptor in most respects, if allowed to get into a close-range engagement, could potentially out-maneuver and outgun their American rival. Even more concerning was the development of the fifth generation Su-57 by the Russians and Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-31 by the Chinese. The J-20 would enter Chinese service in 2017, and while cost overruns initially cast the adoption of the Su-57 into doubt, the aircraft would see combat trials in Syria throughout 2018, and be officially introduced into service with the Russian Air Force in 2019. While the US was confident that the Raptor's more proven technology and the greater experience of its pilots would keep the F-22 firmly at the top of the proverbial food chain, the aircraft was nevertheless beginning to show its age. It had only just been upgraded for compatibility with the AIM-9X Sidewinder (a 2003 development) in 2016, and still lacked support for a helmet-mounted cueing system or HMCS device necessary to take full advantage of the AIM-9X's high off-boresight (HOBS) capability (partly due to the canopy of the Raptor not being wide enough to allow the pilot to fully rotate their head while wearing a typical HMCS device, including the US military's standard Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System or JHMCS, used in the F-16 and F/A-18). Countless features that the F-22's older, more frequently flown brethren like the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 had been upgraded with for years were conspicuously missing from the Air Force's most deadly fighter, as money was understandably prioritized towards aircraft that saw more frequent use. But times were changing. In light of rising global tension, the USAF wished to more aggressively assert its dominance over the skies, and the F-22 would play a key role in this. Traditionally, with the Raptor being such an underproduced and expensive aircraft, they were typically relegated to defending the US itself, rather than actively engaging threats overseas. While this changed somewhat with the conflicts in Syria and against ISIS, commanders still mostly remained wary of fully unleashing the Raptor's full potential, for fear of losing such an expensive and valuable asset. But now, in spite of extremely high projected costs associated with doing so, the Air Force wished to enact a restart of F-22 production, in order for new squadrons to be activated at airbases nearby areas of concern, to act as deterrents to enemy powers attempting to utilize new aerial weapons technologies, alongside new and extensively upgraded both land and air-based early-warning detection networks as well as surface-to-air missile systems. With this, the Raptor would serve as a linebacker for more traditional fourth generation and generation 4++ fighters, as well as for multirole fifth generation fighter aircraft like the F-35 Lightning II. It was also decided that the Raptor's avionics and sensor packages would receive fairly extensive upgrades, in the form of the Block 52 version of the aircraft. New production Raptors would fly out from the production facility as Block 52s, while existing aircraft would be refit over the following five years (it would ultimately take six). Block 52 upgrades would include integration of the AIM-9X Sidewinder's full range of functionality, integration of the Scorpion HMCS device (a fairly low-profile HMCS that had previously been used in the Raptor with relative success), and upgraded computer-aided flight control, navigation, targeting, and fire control systems with a more intuitive interface. It was also debated whether or not to redesign the cockpit layout around a panoramic multifunctional display like in the F-35, but this was ultimately dropped in order to keep the already extreme costs down. The first batch of new Raptors would be delivered to the newly-activated 132nd Fighter Wing at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan in late 2022. Unfortunately, this would be the only unit to receive brand new F-22s before global tensions came to a head during the 2025 Crisis. Category:United States Air Force